


Someone Special

by hellcsweetie



Category: Suits (US TV)
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-05
Updated: 2021-01-05
Packaged: 2021-03-15 19:14:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28569072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellcsweetie/pseuds/hellcsweetie
Summary: Donna and Harvey are looking at an old photo album when a revelation comes up, and a difficult conversation is had.
Relationships: Donna Paulsen/Harvey Specter
Comments: 1
Kudos: 14





	Someone Special

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to Lamia for her help with this <3 Hope you like it!

“Oh my God,” Donna manages to squeeze out between fits of laughter. They’re surrounded by photo albums, her memories intertwined with his.

Harvey’s shaking his head, lips pursed to contain a smile. “I want you to keep in mind that we’ll be moving on to your own pictures next,” he censors her as he flips the page they’re currently looking at. 

Donna flips it back, bats his hand away and pulls it closer, inspecting the image in front of her carefully. Harvey and Marcus, probably around 10 and 6, with matching bowl haircuts and ugly Christmas sweaters. Marcus is missing two front teeth and Harvey’s hand is cast into a permanent thumbs up from falling from a tree branch.

Harvey was an adorable child. Freckles on his nose, gangly limbs and a rascal grin constantly on his face. She absolutely loves this side of him, this playful, adventurous energy. She can still see a spark of that between him and Mike when they go out with him and Rachel on weekends, or when he picks her up, throws her over his shoulder and carries her back to bed on Saturday mornings. She loves carefree Harvey more than any other Harvey in the world, and she especially loves that she can be a witness to this after so many years of wandering.

It’s a special kind of honor, being privy to Harvey’s childhood. He’s been more open about it since he reconciled with his mom, but she knows for a fact no one else knows more about it than her. If that had already been true before, it’s infinitely more true now that he actively invites her in, wants to show her the memories and the accidents and the goodness. 

It’s a beautiful thing to watch. Harvey grows more into his own story each day, embraces more of the past. He’s been so much more willing to look back on moments, reevaluate his perspective on them and how they might have been shaped by the experiences he has now learned to leave behind. It’s like he’s rediscovering his heritage. Donna feels incredibly lucky and grateful to be allowed into this process, and she holds his hand every step of the way. 

She finally flips the page and sees a picture of a young Lily in front of one of her paintings. It’s the first picture she sees of her from that time that offers a good, ample look at her face, and Donna’s breath catches in her throat.

She met Gordon in person, so she knows how much like him Harvey is. But this picture is just... She sees his nose, the color of his hair, the shape of his lips. She sees bloodlines and family and decades in that picture.

“Oh my God, you look just like her,” she says softly, a hand coming up to cover her mouth for a moment before descending back to the picture.

“You think so?” His voice sounds tiny, so she looks at him. He looks surprised and amazed and she realizes that maybe no one’s ever said this to him.

She glances at the picture again, then back at him. “Yeah,” she whispers and nods, a smile forming on her lips. “I hadn’t noticed the similarities because on FaceTime she didn’t look so much like you but in this picture it’s incredible.”

Lily must have been around Harvey’s age here. He stares at it, probably trying to compare it to himself in his mind, and she sees his eyes well up a little. Harvey spent so long negating his mom, trying to distance himself from anything remotely related to her because of how much pain she had caused him, that he ended up without a lot to hold on to now that she was gone. He has endless memories and relics of his father, but not much of his mother, and Donna knows how much that has weighed on him for the almost full year since Lily passed away. 

So she can understand how this new discovery, how sharing something with Lily he never thought possible and couldn’t get rid of if he tried, something so basic and intrinsic as his own skin, must be a big deal for him. Her eyes glisten with his as she cups his cheek and they share a smile.

They go through a few more pages until they reach a picture of him with a blonde girl, both dresses to the nines for prom. Donna laughs again. 

“You made a cute couple. Was she your girlfriend?” she asks as she analyzes the girl’s dress. 

“Yeah, Stacy White, we went out for a few months,” he grins at the memory. “Jesus, I remember how excited my parents were.”

“Did they meet her?” she lifts her brows, amused. 

“They did that night, her older brother drove us to prom.”

“Did you bring many girls home?” she teases him, bumping their shoulders. 

“No, actually, that was the first time. My mom was completely beside herself, Stacy must’ve thought I was on the path to priesthood or something,” Harvey laughs. “Every single time I mentioned a girl to my dad he’d tell my mom and she’d make a huge deal out of it. After Stacy I got so traumatized I never brought another girl home. I don’t even know how she managed to keep her cool with Paula after so many years.”

He’s still chuckling and staring at the picture but the words register with Donna instantly.

“Wait, Paula met your mother?” 

Harvey’s smile slips and he turns to her, looking caught. “Uh, yeah. Lily came to the city once for work and ended up having dinner with us. It was really last-minute.”

Donna _knows_ this is a reasonable thing to have happened. She knows no one could have predicted the future and she knows if Harvey could have introduced her to his mom in person he would have.

Still, her stomach drops horribly and her throat clogs up. 

“I’m sorry,” Harvey says hurriedly and she sees his eyes widening in panic. 

Shit. 

“Harvey, you have nothing to apologize for,” she forces a tiny smile onto her face because this is definitely not his fault. “You didn’t do anything wrong, seriously.”

He looks reluctant to believe her and she feels like crying and she knows she needs to sort out her feelings by herself first because if she breaks down in front of him he’ll be floored and she doesn’t want him to ever think that letting someone in is a bad thing.

She takes his hand and gives it a squeeze and tries to make her smile more reassuring.

“Are we okay?” he asks quietly.

“Always,” she leans in and lays a soft kiss on his lips.

They turn back to the album but it’s obvious that the mood has changed irreparably.

“I should go take a shower. Maybe then we can finish watching that movie?” she suggests chipperly as she stands up.

“Yeah, sure,” he nods, probably more to her benefit. She rushes to the bathroom, locks herself inside and takes a shaky breath. 

Her heart is racing and her skin is tingling. She never stopped to consider that Lily might have met Harvey’s girlfriends. It was just so many years of him not speaking to her that Donna sort of became accustomed to it, to thinking that she had the monopoly on all things Lily. And for it to have been Paula, of all people...

She had been devastated when Lily passed, of course. She’d been wanting to meet her in person for so long and she knows it would have been a really huge moment for Harvey and she’d wanted nothing more for him. But she’d made peace with the fact that it just didn’t happen and that’s life. She’d been okay with that. 

Now she feels like she was robbed of something. Like someone else got to have a part of him she never will. She has every single part of him, every last inch, but she’ll never have this. She was okay with it when she thought no one else would either, but that’s not true anymore. 

Paula got to experience Harvey with his mother. She saw a side of him Donna never did, and it probably would have stung if it had been Zoe or Scottie or someone else, but the fact that it's _Paula_ , the one person who knew Harvey as well as she did - or even better, she used to fear -, the one person Harvey ever considered replacing her with, pushing her away for, it adds a layer of loss that punches her in the gut.

Donna married him, moved in with him, is going to spend the rest of her life with him. She gets his love and devotion and care in a way she knows he never gave anyone else. 

But she can never have _that_. 

She can never, ever have that and the thought suffocates her, makes her gasp for air as she feels tears stream down her cheeks. A wave of grief floods her, a grief she doesn’t understand but feels deeply nonetheless. 

She undresses hastily and steps beneath the hot water, trying to get the water to wash away this inexplicable pain. 

It shouldn’t be this big a deal. But it is, and she focuses on calming herself down to be able to face Harvey again because it’s not fair to unload this on him. He grieves his mother too, for entirely different and worthier reasons, and Donna would never forgive herself if she ever took anything away from that.

She braces against the tiles and lets the warm stream flow down her back. Her breathing slows down and, though she can still feel the tears coming, she starts actually showering. She takes her time, feeling her limbs heavy and slow as she lathers soap onto herself. 

When she’s done she feels drained. She doesn’t blow-dry her hair, just puts on a pair of sweats and heads out to the living room. She makes herself some tea and finally meets him on the couch, where he’s finishing the newspaper he’d started that morning. 

“Are you ready to talk to me?” he asks cautiously as he studies her, curled up on the couch next to him, clutching her mug protectively. She nods and sits more properly. 

“I’m sorry about how I reacted,” she starts. "I was caught by surprise and I let it get to me a little. There is nothing wrong with Paula having met Lily, at all.” It doesn’t feel great, but it’s true. 

“You know how much I wanted her to meet you,” he murmurs and she feels guilty about the pain and remorse she finds in his face. 

“I do! I do,” she takes his hand, brushing her thumb warmly over his fingers. “It’s nobody’s fault, Harvey, you did absolutely nothing wrong.”

He watches her as she takes a deep breath. 

“I guess I didn't realize someone else might have met your mother," she admits.

"It wasn't really a conscious decision," he defends, "She was in town on the same night as Paula and I were meant to have dinner, I thought it was a good idea to have them meet."

"And that's okay," she rushes to reassure him, because really, she knows Harvey was serious about Paula, and introducing a serious girlfriend to your mother is a normal, healthy move. She just wishes it had been her instead. "This is not... I'm not upset at you. I just..."

She exhales, frustrated at herself for not being able to formulate her words properly. She feels like a spoiled child who didn't get her way, at the same time as she recognizes that this is a big deal. Her head is a mess of petty resentment and competitiveness, renewed grief at losing someone who meant a lot to her, and the weight of her difficult history with Harvey all wrapped into one.

"I never.... I used to think no one could have what we had, _this_. So it didn't matter what happened, like..." She stops, huffs. She hates this, hates that talking about this feels like such a hurdle. She's always been a firm believer in open communication but the truth it, with Harvey she's never followed her own advice. It's scary to open up this can of worms, to expose herself like this, and even though they've done it before and will likely do it again, it hasn't gotten any easier yet.

And Paula in particular has always felt especially difficult to address. Not just because of the repercussions, but also because she hates what that relationship did to her. She has never felt as low and needy and _dirty_ , really, as she did back when Harvey was with her. It led her to kiss him, and risk their entire friendship. It led her to consider sleeping with a married man. It led her to be possessive and territorial and a fraud, and it led her to lie through her teeth and belittle herself. It's not the first time they discuss this but the words are as clogged in her throat as if it were.

"Hey," Harvey coaxes gently, "We agreed we'd try to be more open."

He's right, and she wants to. With a deep breath, Donna rearranges herself on the couch to straighten out her mind. She cradles her mug on her lap and forces herself to start. "The reason why I never had a problem with your girlfriends was because they never really felt like competition to me. What we had was special, different, and I just felt like no matter how close you got to someone else, even Scottie, it would still not be as close as we were. And then came Paula, the person you told everything to. I mean, I don't even know what you told her, because we weren't even speaking back then, and that's another problem entirely..." she trails off, annoyed at herself for rambling and being a mess.

Harvey just watches on patiently, his attention fully on her. He nods a bit when she stops, encouraging her to go on, and she can barely recognize in him the man who used to run from any and all kinds of emotional display, but she loves this new version of him.

So she tries again. "It felt... scary, to see you try something with someone who knew you as well as I did. It felt like I was really losing you for the first time, like I wasn't going to fit into your life anymore, especially since we weren't working together. I've gotten over that, and I know how much I mean to you. But hearing that she met your mother and I didn't, it just... It just stings. I wanted to meet her so badly," she whispers this last bit, eyes filling up with tears again as the storm inside of her starts to clear up.

She watches Harvey swallow and nod his understanding, and she hates herself a little bit for the shame she sees in his face.

"Donna, if I'd known... If I could have chosen _anyone_ for my mom to meet, even before we got together, it'd be you," he says, and his voice is tiny and earnest and she loves him so damn much her chest constricts. "I know it's not my fault but it's still one of my biggest regrets that you never got to meet her in person. And as for Paula...," he runs a hand through his hair, "She knew a lot, things I didn't even know I was capable of sharing, but you're the person who knows me best, Donna, you always have been. And I know we've talked about this before and I don't wanna rehash it, but she could never have replaced you. We all knew it and it was stupid of me to even try. This... _sucks_ , but there's nothing more to it than chance. It doesn't, it doesn't mean anything."

She knows all this. She _knows_ it, but knowing it and feeling it in her bones are two different - and, in this instance, very distant - things. She has everything she has ever dreamed of, and a million more she could never have imagined with him, but somehow right now it feels a lot easier to focus on what she lacks. She wants to move on from this but she isn't sure she can do that so quickly.

Sensing her hesitation, Harvey goes on. "It was never the same with her as it is with you. You _get_ me, Donna, and she may have known me but she didn't _get_ me. And... We can...," he stops, swallows, and she knows this is difficult for him too, "We can talk more about this if you want, some other time, but right now I just need you to understand that."

She doesn't really know why this whole thing hit her so hard, especially since she hardly ever thinks about Paula anymore, but it did, and hearing him say all this out loud settles something inside of her. This does suck, and she's sure she'll grapple with this reality many more times, but for now she decides it's enough to know that they're on the same page. Despite everything they've been through, Donna could never doubt the intensity of Harvey's feelings for her, and that certainty burns in her chest and makes it feel like everything will be okay.

Finally, she bites her lower lip and nods. "Alright."

"Are we _really_ okay now?" he repeats his works from earlier.

Donna lets out a puff of laughter. "Yes," she says, and repositions herself to tuck herself into his side. He wraps an arm around her and kisses her hair.

"If it helps, I can tell you how that dinner went. My mom totally stuck her foot in her mouth with Paula," he offers after a moment.

She probably shouldn't stay on the subject, but something about Lily's encounter with Paula going poorly gives her a perverse sense of satisfaction, so she decides to indulge herself and nods.

"Well, it was all going fine until my mom got things mixed up and thanked Paula for encouraging me to go see her. Except Paula never actually encouraged me to go see my mom...," he trails off, letting her connect the dots.

"I did," she concludes, pulling back a little to be able to look at him properly.

"Yup," he nods, "Back when I first went to Boston to try to patch things up with her, I told her someone very special to me convinced me it was time to make things right."

"You did?" she asks, completely surprised by this revelation. Lily told her Marcus had kept her up to date on all things Harvey, and so she knows Lily knew of her, but she never thought Harvey would have mentioned her directly.

Harvey nods. "She assumed I meant Paula, but Paula saw right through it and told her right there and then that she wasn't the special someone I was talking about."

Donna bites the inside of her cheek, trying to control her sense of validation. "Was she mad?"

"She was," he grins, "We had a fight about it afterwards and all. Then later, when we got together, I told my mom _you_ were the special someone. What Paula had with her was a circumstantial encounter. My mom knew all along that you were the one who mattered."

He's smiling a little but his eyes are serious, and she believes him from the bottom of her heart. After a beat she leans over and captures his lips, just to show him they're okay. When she pulls away, she keeps their faces close. 

"For the record, I wish I could have met her in person, but I still loved all our FaceTime calls and our texts, and I love getting to know her better through you," she says softly, caressing his cheek. He smiles at her words and grabs her wrist gently, moving it to kiss her palm.

Harvey's history with his mother is complicated. Donna's history with his mother is complicated, and their own history is complicated as well. That's the deal with having a long history; they've been in each other's lives for too long for it to be simple, but that's also why it's so special. She may not have gotten to meet Lily like she wanted to, but she still gets to meet her every day through the painting in their living room, through Marcus' stories and the kids' memories of her, through her relics and, most importantly, through her husband.

For so long Harvey saw himself exclusively as his father's son, but now he knows he belongs just as much to his mother. And that means Donna will always have an unbreakable bond with Lily, for the rest of her life.


End file.
